


The Thin Line

by bananacosmicgirl



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Angst, Episode: s04e15 House's Head, Episode: s04e16 Wilson's Heart, Friendship, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 23:55:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7734793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bananacosmicgirl/pseuds/bananacosmicgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wilson’s thoughts and feelings as he watches House sleep in “Wilson’s Heart”.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Thin Line

Wilson hates House.

It’s a first, because while Wilson has disliked House before, has disagreed with House’s actions and resented him for getting Wilson fired, he has never _hated_ House.

House lies in his bed. He’s sleeping, and Wilson is thankful for that. He knows he’ll leave when House wakes up, because he can’t deal with seeing those blue eyes. He wonders if House hates Wilson – after all, Wilson put Amber before House, and he’s never done that before, not just with Amber, but with anyone. And not only did he put Amber before House, but he made House risk his life, his _mind_ , to save her.

Not that it matters, because Amber still died in the end, taking her last breath in Wilson’s arms, the little strength she had left leaving her body. He can still feel that moment, over and over – he hears her words, feels her shaking against him. He remembers the salty tears down his cheeks, hot and far too many to count.

Cuddy sits next to House, her fingers wrapped around his hand. She too is sleeping, crammed in her chair.

He wonders if House will take her comfort now. Take being the keyword, because House never does anything but take.

_That’s not true_ , his mind reminds him, in a voice that sounds a bit like House’s. _He gave you his mind_.

He is still grateful that House is sleeping, but part of Wilson wants him to wake up. Wants House to look at him, give him a scathing comment, something that gives Wilson a reason to hate.

Hot tears trickle down his cheeks. He can’t remember if he’s stopped crying since Amber died – or rather, a while before she died. He thinks he cried more than her when she died. She was calm, wanted to feel safe and loved in her last moments alive. He could give her the love, but he couldn’t keep her safe.

He wants to yell at House, wants to punch him and kick him and rip him apart. House has stolen everything from him – he was _happy_ with Amber. She was like House. She was a female version of him, without the pain and hatred towards the world in general. She was everything Wilson could ever have hoped for – and now she’s been ripped away from him, cut away from him with sharp knives that keep stabbing at his heart. He must be bleeding, he thinks, because it hurts so badly.

He draws a shuddering breath. His nose is filled with snot and he needs a tissue, but he doesn’t want to move, because moving might wake House or Cuddy or both. He doesn’t want to talk. He wants to scream and kick, he wants someone to tell him that everything is simply a dream, a nightmare, that none of it is real and that he’ll wake up in a few minutes and everything will be all right.

But no one tells him that, and Wilson stays standing, leaning against the glass wall behind him, breathing through his mouth.

If only House hadn’t gone out drinking.

If only he hadn’t called Wilson.

If only Wilson hadn’t been unavailable.

If only— there are so many if onlys that it makes Wilson choke, and he gazes at Cuddy and House through red eyes, hoping that he didn’t wake them. Neither of them stir, one too exhausted after hours of bedside watch, and the other so ill and injured that they don’t know what he’ll be like when he wakes up.

He tries to tell himself that he doesn’t care if House wakes up a vegetable, or if he wakes up less quick and witty before. He tells himself that he will never speak to House again. But that thought stabs at his heart immediately. Wilson ignores it, because he won’t miss House.

He won’t.

They flash through his mind, the good memories of House. Despite all their hardships, there are many – simple ones, like when he teased House about the date with Cameron, or the stolen lunches while they lived together. Conversations in their offices, on their balconies, the game of hiding the guitar to get House to hire a new team, and the Christmases he’s spent with House, rather staying with him and listening to House playing the piano than celebrating with his wife, whichever one he may have been with at the time.

But thoughts of Christmas depresses him, because now, Christmases will always make him think of finding House on the floor after an overdose.

Really, it’s amazing that House is still alive at all.

Guilt stabs his gut as he thinks of last Christmas, when he found House in a puddle of his own puke. He knows he shouldn’t have left – he should have stayed there, should have helped him, should have made sure he was safe. Instead he just left, so fed up with all of House’s crap, even though House taking the Oxycodone was only brought on by Wilson’s refusal to give him Vicodin, even in the prescribed amount.

Their stupid, screwed up friendship.

Perhaps they’re equally bad friends after all. House has done many more things to destroy them both, but those fewer things that Wilson has done are worse.

House begins to stir. His skin is so pale, nearly white, and his hair seems to have grayed since the accident – or perhaps Wilson simply hasn’t noticed the change in the last few months, because his world has been pink and fluffy. There are dark shadows beneath House’s eyes and bandages everywhere.

Wilson watches as House moves, small twitches in his fingers and face. He prays that Cuddy won’t wake up – he can’t deal with her sorrow and attempts at comfort, not now – and thankfully, she doesn’t.

House’s eyes open and meet Wilson’s. They are still clear blue, still beautiful. Wilson has never seen eyes like House’s. They seem to look through him, read him, _know him_.

But it hurts to look. It hurts, because Wilson wants to blame House, but the moment their eyes meet he knows that House blames himself, and that makes it impossible for Wilson to do so as well. He wants to be angry with House, tell him that he can’t feel guilty, because that’s just so wrong. House isn’t supposed to feel guilt.

He wants to scream.

He doesn’t.

He chokes again on his own tears, and squeezes his eyes together, trying to avoid House’s gaze – yet when he closes his eyes, all he sees is blue.

Though he leaves, or maybe flees, just a moment later, he has already realized that the first he thought he’d just had, wasn’t right after all. His heart breaks all over again, because it’s not something he wanted to realize. His feet take him away from House’s room, but the blue color stays with him.

The line is thin, he realizes, even thinner than he thought.

Because Wilson loves House.


End file.
